


what orange tastes like

by skateboardachoo



Category: Pentagon (Korea Band), SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, good god girl cool it with the citrus metaphors, idolverse, it has haunted me every day since, this is the story of that vacation, to jeju in december 2019, uh oh vernon has a siken moment, vernon and hyunggu went on a vacation just the two of them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:14:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28823526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skateboardachoo/pseuds/skateboardachoo
Summary: It’s like Hansol’s heart is a tangerine and he is peeling back his skin and flicking away pith and giving Hyunggu slices of his ventricles and atria, bit by bit, until he’s shared it all without saving some for himself.He didn’t give away the slices all at once, it was a slow thing.
Relationships: Chwe Hansol | Vernon/Kang Hyunggu | Kino
Comments: 9
Kudos: 33
Collections: Seventeen Rare Pair Fest: 2 Rare 2 Pair





	what orange tastes like

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SVTRarePairFest2](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SVTRarePairFest2) collection. 



> thank you for taking a chance on this now revealed wip! 
> 
> ever since hyunggu posted photos from this trip during doctö bébé promos i have not known peace. this fic actually got started in april 2020 and i used this fest as incentive to finish it (obviously that did not happen but whatever). 
> 
> i know whenever i post a fic i have a laundry list of people to thank like it's my award speech at the oscars and this time is no different! it really does take a village for me to write, complete, and post something. so endless thank yous to [b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/changgus%22) who delivered me lore of vernon and hyunggu's friendship on a platter and encouraged me to write this, [kim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dygonilly) and [carina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/infrequency) for reading this over and petting my hair and telling me that i'm pretty, and finally to miss [isi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixiepower) for being a fabulous beta and constantly seeing my Vision. 
> 
> also, there is frank discussion about the realities of idol life in this fic like crash dieting and maintaining an idolsona. there is also brief allusions to dawn and hyuna's removal from cube entertainment and potential group disbandment. if any of those topics are uncomfortable for you to read, please proceed with caution! if something else mentioned in the fic needs a content warning do not hesitate to let me know!

_I peeled my orange  
_ _That was so bright against  
_ _The gray of December  
_ _That, from some distance,_  
_Someone might have thought  
_ _I was making a fire in my hands._

\- Gary Soto

☞

Hyunggu shouldn’t be facetiming him at 2am, but Hansol shouldn’t be buying canned coffee and a pack of kimbap from the GS25 down the block from the dorm at this hour either. 

The ahjumma is handing him his card back, gently scolding him for being up so late and telling him to buy juice and vitamins at this hour instead, it’s healthier and promotes vigor and long life, but she’s interrupted by Hansol’s phone going off. His phone only ever rings off vibrate for Hyunggu.

He apologizes to the ahjumma, and she waves him off with a kind-hearted hand, mumbles something about “You’re young. Girlfriends are more important than life advice, I understand,” and Hansol pretends not hear it, pretends that he doesn’t tense up and prays the other people also haunting the convenience store don’t recognize him.

Hansol walks back out onto the street and answers, hands already clammy and frigid from the early December chill.

“Get me out of here, Hansol-ah.” 

Even through the pixels, he can tell Hyunggu’s been sobbing. Eyes hazy and cheeks rosy with streaks reflecting in the blue-light of Hyunggu’s phone, even though Hansol’s in the dark. He kicks himself mentally, ashamed that he thinks Hyunggu looks pretty even like this.

“Hyunggu-yah, tell me what’s wrong,” he says. Hyunggu sniffles on the other end but tries to cover it up with a half-hearted laugh. Always covering it up. 

“Nothing’s wrong, just wanna get out of here. Wanna go somewhere with you. But just you, no one else,” he says, a little whiny and a little petulant. Hyunggu wipes at his eyes with the cuff of his hoodie, something tie-dye.

“Is that my hoodie?” 

“Yeah, took it from you.”

“Just don’t get it gross,” Hansol says, but really he’s wondering if his hoodie still smells like his body wash and cologne. Futilely hoping that’s why Hyunggu is wearing it: ’cause it smells like him. It’d be nice if that’s the reason why, that Hansol can comfort him even when he’s not around. 

Or does it smell like Hyunggu now, his Byredo Blanche roll-on he uses all the time, even on his off days. Wondering if Hyunggu ever actually gives his hoodie back to him, will he be creepy and weird and not wash it, just to have a little bit of Hyunggu with him wherever he goes?

“I’m not gonna get it gross.”

“You’re getting it gross right now.”

“I have allergies,” Hyunggu fires back, pushing the cuffs back and chewing on a nail. 

“It’s December, you don’t have allergies. Just tell me what’s up, man,” Hansol presses, looking away from his phone briefly to cross the street and get back into the apartment building. 

Hyunggu humphs and flops down onto something soft, he must be in his room. It’s a small relief. Hansol worries when it’s late like this and he gets facetime calls from Hyunggu and he’s laying on the warm-toned wood of his practice room across the river, chest heaving and breath shaky from running choreo over and over again, saying shit like, “need to see a face that doesn’t belong to anyone I live and work with and I like your face the best.” 

And Hansol knows that feeling. 

“It’s just,” Hyunggu cuts himself off. “It’s just comeback prep. You know how it is.”

Yeah, he knows how it is.

“Overwhelming?” Hansol asks, typing in the keycode to the dorm and waving to Minghao who is still awake on the couch, flipping through a fashion magazine. Minghao looks up from the pages over his glasses perched on his nose, smiling at Hansol and mouthing “Hyunggu?” and Hansol nods, pretending he doesn’t see Minghao’s smirk and shake his head as he goes to sit at the kitchen table. 

“Yeah, it’s like. Hui’s written something like six hundred songs, Jinho is juggling rehearsal for his musical on top of comeback prep. Yuto and Wooseok are off finger blasting each other’s assholes or something while Changgu and I lock ourselves in the practice room with the choreographers until 3am some nights. The choreo is hard this time. Real fucking hard. I don’t think Wooseok’s back injury is gonna be able to handle it, but. He’s trying. He’s trying so hard. And Hongseok’s on a new crash diet that’s making Shinwon super fucking upset, and well all of us super fucking upset but especially Shinwon, and we all miss Yanan like a limb. But I just. It was the breaking point today,” Hyunggu spills. 

It’s messy and rambling. It’s exactly how Hyunggu needed to get it out, crashing out of him like choppy wakes left behind, beating against banks and Hansol will be the one to calm his waves and slow the churn.

“So you wanna run away?” Hansol asks, breaking the seal on his kimbap container with a thumb and notices Minghao slipping in his airpods out of courtesy. 

A sigh.

“Just for a little bit,” Hyunggu admits, flopping onto his stomach, the bags under his eyes more apparent from this angle. 

“Are you guys getting a break before promos start?” he asks around a mouthful of vegetables and rice. 

“Ew, can you swallow your food first. No, but I said fuck it and told the managers I was taking a break this weekend whether they like it or not,” Hyunggu says, ducking his chin into Hansol’s hoodie, red nose still peaking out, completely unaware of the flips Hansol’s stomach is doing and it’s not from the a few-too-many-hours-old convenience store kimbap. 

“And you were banking on me not having a schedule this weekend?”

“I know you don’t have a schedule this weekend.”

“Fine, where do you wanna go?”

“Surprise me. Whisk me away, take me to the stars, Hansollie,” Hyunggu says, rolling onto his back and dramatically sighing. The tears are gone now and he’s grinning, wide and shiny, and maybe a little bit coy because there’s nothing Hyunggu does better than flirt his way through every thing, gazing back at Hansol through the camera, half-lidded. 

And Hansol wishes he was there with Hyunggu right now, cramped together and too hot in Hyunggu’s twin sized bed, so their legs could tangle together and Hansol could wipe away his tears. But they don’t do that. They don’t get to curl up together in each other’s dorm rooms like that. 

They’re not like that with each other, tied up in each other like a Gordian knot unable to discern which part belongs to who, but Hansol wishes they were. Hansol wishes he could whine and pout and stamp his feet like a little kid wailing for his friend to stay just five minutes longer, to stay forever. 

Sometimes, when they’re out wandering the winding uphill streets of Hongdae on night when the schedules don’t start until two in the afternoon, Hansol thinks Hyunggu wants to say “stay” instead of parting ways for the night, day, week, month. Hansol thinks, well, hopes one of these days, Hyunggu will snatch the T-money card out of his hand and demand Hansol come home with him tonight. And who is he to ever say no to Kang Hyunggu?

Seoul is a big city, but right now the river between them is an ocean. 

And Hansol’s smiling back at him, snack and coffee forgotten. It’s easy to forget other things, the important and the trivial, when Hyunggu is involved. 

“I’ll figure something out. I dunno about the stars, but I can try,” he levels. Hyunggu gives him a sarcastic scoff. “Do you feel better now? You should get some sleep.” 

“Always feel better after talking to you, Hansollie. Always always always,” Hyunggu says, sleepy and yawning over the last part. And Hansol swallows down all his Hyunggu-shaped emotions. 

“Good night, Hyunggu,” he says, instead of the big and scary things he actually wants to say. And Hyunggu sticks his tongue out instead of saying good night and ends the call.

_“Whipish, whipish, whipish.”_

Hansol whips around in his seat to glare at Minghao, who’s smirking and cracking a pretend whip with a lackadaisical flip of his wrist, not even looking at Hansol, still focused on his magazine.

He ducks out the way, the empty coffee can Hansol throws at him hitting the wall behind him with a clang that has Soonyoung banging on the wall, laughing to himself. 

☞

Hansol would be lying if he said he didn’t remember when he first met Kang Hyunggu. It’s embarrassing how he can recall every tiny detail of their meeting and just how rabbit-heartbeat fast Hyunggu became the sun he orbited around, no other option but to be dragged into his warm and glowing gravitational pull.

Hyunggu wasn’t around for his curling shaggy hair or his braces that constantly cut and chapped his lips or his verses that he was proud of then that make his skin crawl now. Hansol is glad for that though, there was only so much pinched cheeks and cooing he could take then and he knows Hyunggu is the type to have teased him like that. 

But Hyunggu was around for everything else. 

☞

It was a rare off-night in September, humid and muggy, after a busy summer of flying between major Asian cities touring and realizing “Oh shit, they like us. They really, actually like us.” Lucky and blessed for just a little over a year since debuting. 

Seokmin bounced into his room, dragged him away from his computer and said “Mingyu and Myungho are bailing on dinner for no good reason, and it’s the one night, like _all_ of us were free, and you haven’t eaten yet today, I know it, so you’re coming with me” and brought him and only him to a jjimdak place in Gangnam, tucked away from the busy main street off on the second floor of a nondescript building.

And Hansol was really nervous. Seokmin was only older than him by a year and he was used to the older members in general, however these were _his_ people. Hansol barely talked to anyone outside of the members, the fact that he didn’t go to the same performing arts high school, or high school at all, that all of the other idols went to didn’t help either. But Seokmin knew other people and had other friends, the ones in the infamous ’97 line group chat. 

Seokmin ignored his questions of who’s gonna be there the entire subway ride over and Hansol resigned himself to shoving his hands in his hoodie pocket, squaring off his balance, and asking Seokmin about the new Yu-Gi-Oh expansion instead. 

They got to the restaurant, the stairwell lined with photos of the owner with all the idol groups who had ever visited the place, and before Hansol could process what the restaurant even looked they’d been greeted with a high pitched “SEOKMINNIE” and then Seokmin had an armful of Got7’s Yugyeom, before Yugyeom turned his attention to Hansol. 

“Ah, you must be the Hansollie I hear so much about, come on back, we have a big table with the rest of the guys,” Yugyeom said, all warm and welcoming and safe. Hansol decided then Yugyeom was really cool. Albeit it was colored with a bit of starstruck wonder, but cool nonetheless. 

Seokmin blended in with his friends, who welcomed him with cheers and claps on the back, but Vernon felt anxiety crawl up acrid in the back of his throat. He saw these people backstage at music shows briefly and they shared the same stage waiting for voting results, but he didn’t _know_ them. And sure, _Seokmin_ knew them and that was totally fine but he didn’t even know Yugyeom from Got7 knew who he _was_. 

He recognized BTS’s Jungkook, he was a little shocked to see him knowing they were prepping for a big fuck-off comeback according to Mingyu, and NCT127’s Jaehyun, shocked too to see him knowing how often Seokmin whines about Jaehyun ignoring the group chat, like all the time. Bambam was also seated at the table but there was someone seated closest to him that he didn’t recognize from any music show promo. 

Whoever he was, he was pretty. 

And Hansol wasn’t used to thinking boys were pretty yet. Not until he met Kang Hyunggu. 

But that was the only word coming to mind when Hansol sat across from him, straddling the table leg since Seokmin decided to abandon him to the wolves and wedged himself in between Jaehyun and Jungkook.

The boy crossed his legs, his shorts hiking up a bit further, and moved them over a tad, so Hansol could fit in better and Hansol was thankful for that. They all danced, but the grace and care he took in just a simple action told Hansol he was a _dancer_. The boy’s defined calves and bird-bone slender ankles were distracting. 

Hansol was about open his mouth to introduce himself, but the boy turned to him and cocked his head to rest it in his hand, jawline already knife-edge sharp, and flicked his tongue out to wet his lips, shiny and bitten cherry-red, before smiling and Hansol gulped. 

“I’m Kang Hyunggu, Kino soon though, and using context clues I’m guessing you’re Hansol-ssi?” the boy— Hyunggu asked, light like a hummingbird and a little giggly. And Hansol knew immediately, in this tiny jjimdak place tucked away from the loud lights and sway of Gangnam, that Hyunggu wasn’t just anyone. 

Some facts Hansol learned when meeting Hyunggu for the first time that muggy evening in September:

**1.** They were the same age, cut from the same cloth, and they only found that out when Yugyeom declared that “the babies have to pour for us” and Hansol was surprised to see both Hyunggu and him reach for the same bottle of soju. Fingertips brushing, Hansol suppressed a shiver, knowing that Hyunggu probably didn’t feel the same electric spark he felt.They looked at each other, air thick, before they both broke laughing at the other before Hyunggu snatched the bottle away. 

“Ah, Yugyeom am I really that much of a baby? I had a higher class rank than you,” Hyunggu teased, grabbing Yugyeom’s glass and pouring, and honked out a laugh at Yugyeom’s sputtering. It was an ugly thing but Hansol liked how his nose scrunched up until he was all gums and teeth.

**2.** For all that Hyunggu teased, he could not take what was dished. Jaehyun made an off-color comment about debut songs always being a little bit crap and embarrassing and Hansol saw Hyunggu crumple in on himself, silent for a beat, face blank except for the pull together of his brows.

**3.** Hyunggu was about to debut, and there was a fire in his eyes, a hunger for success, a sense of desperation to prove, prove, prove that clouded every single one of his actions. He was among friends, but there was a challenge in his tone, very “just fucking try me.” Hansol admired that. 

“Hui-hyung start some shit with anyone new recently, Hyunggu-yah?” Bambam asked slyly and nudged his elbow against a snickering Yugyeom, clearly an inside joke that everyone else at the table was privy too except Hansol. It made him feel like the kid brother a mom would tell an older sibling to bring or else they couldn’t go out. 

“No and that’s only because we don’t annoy Hui-hyung like Mark did, we have a little bit of something called respect,” he said, haughty. 

And finally, 

**4.** Hyunggu was a little bit in love with everybody. Almost like there was too much love in his body and he couldn’t help it. There was love in the gentle curvature of his smile and his sparkling eyes gave it all away. There was love in the way he poured the soju, just up to the lip before the surface tension could break. There was love in the way he laughed, too full-bellied and too loud like he didn’t care it wasn’t cute, he just wanted everyone to know they made someone, him, laugh. And there was love in the way he made sure to give anyone who was talking his undivided attention, Hansol learned.

Every time Hansol attempted to interject with his own funny bit or own take on the most recent Drake album, he was drowned out by the hyungs. Which was fine, they were older, he was the fresh meat to their pack of wolves but it didn’t sting any less. Every time he sank into himself, he would look back up to see Hyunggu smiling at him and nodding for him to continue. 

Hyunggu, still though, was too much of an open book, begging for people to turn and flip through his pages, begging for people to fall in love with him too. It wasn’t lost among the determination to prove. After all, the desperation to be loved in return was just the opposite side of the same coin. 

And Hansol, maybe for the first time that night but certainly not for the last time, listened to the pleas. Hyunggu had hooked him in that muggy late Summer evening in Gangnam, leading line too good for his book to be put down and Hansol read and read and read.

☞

“Take him to Jeju, it’s winter so there won’t be tourists everywhere. Oh, that reminds me. My uncle started airbnb-ing his house while he’s backpacking through the Baltics,” Seungkwan suggests, one hand combing through Hansol’s bleached hair, tutting at his roots, other flipping through an arts journal. 

Jeju is not the worst idea Seungkwan’s ever had. Hansol shimmies around so he can look up at Seungkwan, rather than just shoving his face in Seungkwan’s stomach and clamming up so he wouldn’t have to talk about _boys_ and _feelings_. 

Seungkwan is being polite and sensitive about the whole thing. He’s a good friend. It’s been twenty four hours of giving Hansol his fair share of knowing looks and all-seeing-best-friend glances after Hansol came busting into his room at 6am the morning to say “I’m going away this weekend,” and Seungkwan was a good best friend and gave him a rumpled sleep dazed stare and asked “Where and with who?” Jun smacked his lips in his sleep at the disturbance and Chan threw an empty water bottle at Hansol telling him to get out.

Seungkwan hasn’t said anything too incriminating against Hansol. Yet. 

“Is this the uncle who claims Gwenyth Paltrow hand delivered him part of her scoby so he could start up ‘the next big thing in the Korean kombucha industry?” Hansol asks.

“Mhm, the very same. He’s working very hard on that business venture as evidenced by his sojourn around the Baltics,” Seungkwan says, light and lazily flips another page in the magazine. Hansol squints and sees the article is about a new Basquiat recently acquired by the Leeum. 

He lets himself think about the selfies he has tucked away in an album all the way at the back of his photos app labelled with a simple heart emoji. Amid concert photos, selfies taken backstage, there are the ones of him and Hyunggu laughing and draped all over each other taken in the mirror room of the Leeum. 

There’s like fifty outtakes according to Hyunggu, but to Hansol they’re all perfect. Hansol likes the one where Hyunggu had slung his scarf around Hansol’s neck to tug him closer, and Hansol had hit the shutter button right at a moment where he can kid to himself that Hyunggu was looking down at his mouth. Hyunggu makes him crazy like that.

“Aren’t the Baltics fucking cold this time of year?” Hansol asks. He wills away the urge to take out his phone and flick through looking for the photo. He chews on his fingernail instead. Seungkwan slaps his hand away from his mouth without looking up from his magazine. 

“Yes, but that’s never stopped Uncle Hyunjun before. You remember his story of his time at the Icelandic castle with all those drunk off of potato liqueur--“

“Just say vodka, Kwannie.”

“—Slavic history professors and academics and one of them fell off a parapet?” Seungkwan continues, this time shooting Hansol a pointed glare. 

“Of course how could I forget. Why was he even there again?” Hansol asks, resisting the need to roll his eyes.

“He likes to be involved.”

“Right, well, we all like to be involved in things,” Hansol says, running with the bit. 

“As one does.”

Hansol shimmies around some more, tossing a bit to shove his face into Seungkwan’s stomach. Seungkwan is a good friend and goes back to petting his head, humming some old ballad under his breath leaving Hansol to his thoughts. 

Jeju would be nice. Just far enough away to feel like jetsetters but close enough that air travel won’t take up their entire day. It’s been a while since he’s been to Jeju just for fun and not just to film a variety show. 

Thinking about just him and Hyunggu visiting Seungkwan’s home makes him feel a little icky, a little wrong to be taking just Hyunggu to places Seungkwan showed him on purpose. He knows Seungkwan brought him to hidden cliffside knolls and and his favorite tangerine grove because Seungkwan wanted Hansol to know all of him.

All of Seungkwan’s favorite places are the only places Hansol knows. Seungkwan had made Jeju theirs, and made sure Seungkwan would be the only thing Hansol could think of when in Jeju.

“Stop thinking so hard. You’re gonna give yourself a migraine overworking what few brain cells you have up there,” Seungkwan chides with a minuscule yank of a bleached lock. 

“You don’t know my life.” Seungkwan’s hand stills. He places his nearby bookmark in the magazine and folds it shut. Hansol braces for impact, but all he receives is one of Seungkwan’s hands rubbing up and down his spine. A thumb pressing into the tender spots on his neck. A teasing tug at his earlobe.

“Hansol, Jeju is mine. Jeju is yours. Jeju is ours. I showed you my home cause I wanted it to be home to you too. You’re worrying about bringing Hyunggu to _our_ places. But they’re your places too. If he’s special to you, he’s special to me,” Seungkwan says, plainly like it’s not a problem at all. But it _is_ a problem. 

Hansol doesn’t want a bitter and resentful Seungkwan on his hands. Resentment for Seungkwan manifests in the awful, awful way that he pretends everything is fine and cool but it _isn’t_. 

“But know I will fuck him up if he takes too many tangerines from my favorite tree leaving it desolate and in ruin,” he threatens. He says it with glittering eyes and a pout and now things are back to normal. 

“That’s definitely not how nature works,” Hansol snorts. 

“How would you know? Are you Doctor Chwe, botanist supreme?”

“Yeah, haven’t you seen the degree on my wall?”

“Suddenly, I can’t read. Suddenly, I don’t know.”

“Then you won’t mind if I finish up that article slamming Jeff Koons since you can’t read,” Hansol teases, nabbing the magazine from Seungkwan, who only puts up a little bit of a fight for show before sighing and letting Hansol have it. 

Seungkwan huffs and goes back again to petting Hansol’s hair. They sit in content silence, even though Hansol’s _worry_ sits high up in his throat. He doesn’t want Seungkwan to be mad at him, even if Seungkwan _was_ the one to offer accommodations.

“I’ll be fine Hansol, I have to learn how to share at some point. And if this is the first step, then I will let you whisk you your gentleman caller away to my family’s house.”

“Oh my god, he’s not a gentleman caller.”

“He calls you at all hours of the night, you sit anxiously waiting for him to call, and he’s a gentleman. That makes him a gentleman caller,” Seungkwan states, matter-of-fact, too close to authoritarian than diplomatic.

Jeju would be nice.

“I’ll call Uncle Hyunjun tonight.”

Seungkwan is a good friend.

☞

“Yes, Eomma. I got it, gamgyul from the one market we went to that one time when I was twelve. Yes, I’m supposed to be relaxing. No, I won’t overexert myself. I— Yes. I’m with Hansol, of course I’ll be fin— I know. I know. I promise I’ll— it’ll be fine.” Hansol tells himself he can’t feel Hyunggu’s eyes flit over to him, hummingbird fast. Blink and you might miss it.

“I’ll call you when I get back to Seoul. Love you too. Byeeee,” Hyunggu says into his phone. He hangs up and sets his phone screen-side down onto his thighs. 

Hyunggu turns to Hansol and gives him a smile, bright against the grey sky of December, and switches his focus to the scenery out the window. 

The drive from the airport to the area surrounding Hamdeok Beach takes about an hour. Apparently, Uncle Hyunjun's renovated hanok in Jeju City is only a short drive away from the shoreline. Just five minutes. 

One of the managers offered to call ahead and set aside a car for him on the company card, but he declined. He can rent a car on his own. The paperwork wasn't that confusing. Hyunggu put his card down for the second form of insurance. Hansol shot him a concerned look, but Hyunggu was sure. He politely ignored Hyunggu pulling up his bank app as they waited for the valet. 

The route from the airport is further inland than Hansol remembers. Maybe Seungkwan just made sure to take him on the scenic route last time. Hyunggu can look at the flat green fields, the black stone of the hills in the distance, maybe pretend there's a runner alongside their car. Hansol keeps his eyes on the road.

Driving school taught him that distraction is one of the leading causes of motor vehicular accidents. The dangers of checking one's phone, changing the playlist, taking a sip of coffee. No one warned him about the dangers of a beautiful boy sitting shotgun with a sparkle in his eyes and a luminous smile. It's a dangerous thing, love. 

Hansol turns the volume up on the playlist. There's forty-five minutes to go. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a sigh move its way through Hyunggu’s body. His shoulders fall, sloping forward, a tide creeping up to a toddler's toes in sand. He sets an elbow right next to Hansol's on the center console.

"I haven't seen so much green in so long," Hyunggu muses with an infinitesimal grin. His elbow knocks into Hansol's and something zings up and down Hansol's spine.

After Hansol had figured out that boys were pretty and he was getting used to finding them pretty, he had a crisis. Nothing major, but enough that Wonwoo noticed. In the post-practice quiet of the studio, where everyone was too tired to speak in case they all snapped at each other and Hansol sat on his phone in the corner, typing out a text to his mom, Wonwoo handed him a packet of stapled-together pages. 

He looked up at Wonwoo in confusion, but Wonwoo held it out until he took it. 

"There's not a Korean translation yet, but I read on a blog that this was really good," Wonwoo said. The top page was a cheap printer toner streaked black and white photo of a man's hand resting gently against his mouth. The title was in English.

"Uh, thanks, hyung. I'll give a go, I guess. It's gotta be good if you're recommending it," Hansol said, shaking the stack in emphasis.

"I hope it helps, Hansol-ah," Wonwoo said. He gave Hansol's wavy mop a half-hearted noogie with a soft smile. Not one of his scrunchy ones, like when Soonyoung makes a fool of himself, but one of the private ones, where he sees straight through Hansol and knows, but won't say it out loud. He likes it when he can help someone come to a conclusion.

He slung his backpack on and left the practice room with a wave, probably chasing after Soonyoung. Always, always chasing after Soonyoung.

The stack of papers sat at the bottom of Hansol's own backpack for a week, until he remembered and sat on his bed and read until the hour was blue.

Hansol felt hollowed and seen and achey, torn open like anxious hands and fingers working relentless against bumpy citrus peel. Wonwoo was a bastard.

With Hyunggu's elbow pressing against his in the liminal spaces of this rental car, his chest cavity—where something that had already taken root years ago and grew spry like a sapling—was finally getting its rings. He thinks he knows what it is. It reminds him of those words he read all those years ago in a printed-out PDF. Maybe this time he will let himself feel them. 

He's in a car with Hyunggu and they're in Jeju, hundreds of miles from Seoul. Away from the truthful mirrors of practice rooms and boys crowded in dorms. It is green and Hyunggu is beautiful. 

☞

They’ve barely set their bags down before Hyunggu is grabbing the keys from Hansol’s hands with a wink and a coy smile and herding him back into their rental.

“You’re not marveling at the ‘thousand-year old architecture and recently renovated features like finest Italian marble straight from the mountains of Carrara, the heated flooring with smart phone control—‘Hyunggu stop walking away from me— Apparently Seungkwan’s uncle _needed_ us to see the genuine suede couches—“ Hansol says with a laugh, power-walking after Hyunggu.

“The couches were ugly! No one actually likes overstuffed brown suede! C’mon, I wanna see the ocean at sunset,” Hyunggu tosses out over his shoulder before turning on one foot against the driveway, a facsimile of a pirouette, to walk backwards towards the car and grin and tease Hansol. But there’s a sharpness to the movement, not his usual grace and flow. His smile not as radiant.

He clambers into the car after Hyunggu, who already pulled directions up and his phone. The air prickles. 

“You good, man?” Hansol asks. Hyunggu breathes in sharply and a flash of tenseness crosses his features. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Now, play navigator,” he says and throws the car in reverse.

☞

Hamdeok Beach is still in December. Only a smattering of older couples taking their nightly constitutional dot the shores, empty and devoid of tourists with the early winter chill. It’s not like Jeju gets particularly cold, nothing like the harsh bite of a Seoul winter, but it’s enough that Hansol feels the wind whip underneath his layers. Waves crash upon the white sands painted grey and storm blue by the cloudy sky, the peeled-down-to-the-flesh orange of the setting sun fighting to break through. 

Hyunggu challenged him to a race to the shore line, but his practice-sore legs didn’t want to fight against the malleable sands, so they ended up flopping against some wave-beaten crags. 

And now Hyunggu stares out at the horizon. Behind the hood of his grey sweatshirt, his sea salt-chapped cheeks match the pink glow of the setting sun. Silence stretches between them like the lazy waves rolling onto shore. Hansol’s eyes follow, watching Hyunggu tug and chew at his bottom lip. Seagulls caw from above.

“What if it’s not good?” Hyunggu asks. 

“Stop talking like that, you know it’s going to be good,” Hansol asserts. Something like fire burns a hole through his stomach. It’s like when Seungkwan says he’s not enough. It doesn’t settle right with Hansol. 

“But what if it isn’t, Hansol?” Hyunggu asks, shaky and demanding. 

“It’s from you guys, it’s from you and Hwitaek-hyung and Wooseok and everyone. Of course, it’s going to be good. Everyone’s gonna love it,” Hansol says. He reaches out to take one of Hyunggu’s hands in his, curl his big palm over Hyunggu’s more slender one, offering some semblance of steadiness and reassurance, but Hyunggu snatches it away. It unmoors Hansol. 

He turns to face Hansol. The set of his jaw looks different now that the baby fat is gone, but the same determined boy who sat at the jjimdak restaurant table next to him all those years ago stares back at him. Determination can be a terrible and ugly thing if it weren’t on a face as pretty as Hyunggu’s. 

“How can something be good and beautiful when it comes from me? It’s like I have to make up for the fact that it’s me. And I have to-- I _have_ to put something beautiful out in the world to be deserving of the love. So where does that leave m-- us. _Us_ , if it’s not good? All the love, undeserved, from Universe for nothing? Only a bad song and a disappointing career. You don’t get it, Hansol-ah. If this doesn’t hit, we don’t know how many more chances the company will give us,” Hyunggu raises his voice through shaky ire and clenched fists and unfallen tears. 

Hyunggu doesn’t yell. He doesn’t raise his voice. He always chooses careful words and honest conviction when settling something. The only other time Hansol’s heard Hyunggu’s voice rise was, well. It was after everything.

☞

The lights in Hansol’s studio were off and the computer screen light cast against labels of their pile of empty beer cans.

“He shouldn’t have to— It’s insane— Why, they did nothing—“

“It sucks and it’s unfair. I get it. I’m mad too. But it’s dangerous to love in our industry and you know it, Hyunggu. Nothing is more dangerous than love,” Hansol cut Hyunggu off. He meant it then. It hurt to say. He still stroked up and down Hyunggu’s back and plucked a half-drunk can from his hands.

“But, what if I’m not afraid of danger,” Hyunggu said back, bitterly and childishly. He wiped his nose on the shoulder of Hansol’s sweatshirt.

“Then you’re either a fucking idiot or a martyr.” It came out nasty. He didn’t mean it. Hyunggu tensing against his side felt like a knife dug between his ribs.

“I’ll take being a martyr over living the rest of my life in secret, Hansol,” he bit out and angrily grabbed his bag and left Hansol’s studio with a slammed shut door. 

Hansol sat in silence.

☞

"What? I bare my soul to you and I get your patented stare in return?" Hyunggu tries to kid with a half-hearted scoff, like when Seungkwan or Seokmin deflects with humor, to keep people away from their truth. Unlike, Seungkwan or Seokmin, Hyunggu lacks that level of corporate-trained PR idol response. Too earnest with his foot pushing the gas to the floor, having to slam on the brakes like he didn't just do 120KMH in a 60. 

"It'll be beautiful because it's you," Hansol says, taken aback by his own words. It bubbled out of him.

Surprise and confusion and sunset paints itself across Hyunggu's face.

"What?"

"It'll be beautiful. It'll be beautiful because it's _you_."

**Author's Note:**

> [twit](https://www.twitter.com/skateboardachoo)


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